Must We Explain?

Without criticizing members of the esteemed executive board of our alma mater's best fans site, whom we all know are valued contributors to our community, may I ever so respectfully point out that being asked to explain a reason for editing is something of an inane request, and on my part, hard to take seriously.

The reason for editing is:

1) most of what I wrote was mispelled and I was too embarassed to leave the mispelled words on the post because I am a perfectionist of sorts; or

2) I wrote complete balderdash and so I was compelled to correct the misstatements and half truths before they became widely disputed or even known to anyone I know; or

3) As an OCD sufferer, I write absolutely nothing without editing often; or

4) Just checking to see if anyone was reading the post, cause I suspect they may not be being read.

Either way, does it really add anything to have a poster explain edits--we can all assume there was a good reason for the edit, as opposed to asking the poster to explain why, which in my book, suffers for a lack of good reason to elaborate.

Yo, board members, can you edit your request that we explain our edits. Unless national security is involved, we don't need to explain, do we?

Are you referring to the little box that shows up when you click to edit? I dont believe it is a required field... You should have the option to leave it blank...

I edit my posts all the time due to grammar, spelling, etc., and hardly ever fill in that box...

Unless my setup is different as an admin.... Can someone (non-admin) confirm that the field is not required? Thanks...

PilotNut wrote:Are you referring to the little box that shows up when you click to edit? I dont believe it is a required field... You should have the option to leave it blank...

I edit my posts all the time due to grammar, spelling, etc., and hardly ever fill in that box...

Unless my setup is different as an admin... Can someone (non-admin) confirm that the field is not required? Thanks...

I fill that little box in - usually with nonsense. It's not required, but after someone else posts, a message at the bottom will show you made an edit

There is a little undocumented feature of that box that I inadvertently discovered. If you make corrections before a certain period of time (a day, I think, or maybe when the calendar rolls over), AND no one has posted after you, AND you leave the field blank, no record appears that you edited the post. I'm such a bad speller and typer that this has become a very useful feature for me. It's one thing to see the gibberish you wrote in the little edit box, a whole 'nother thing to see it full size.

I move to make it a required field - we need to sufficient audit trails here folks!! Transparency is paramount. We don't want people to be editing posts after they've been proven to be foolishly off-base in order to save their own internet pride without some accountability.

For shame, wrv, for shame...

How do I know you haven't edited this post?

If we will be required to document all the errors and times we saw how foolish we were and corrected, it might cause the server to crash.

Also, the text field to allow for it might need to be bigger than the post field.....
I've written a post, put it up on the forum, and looked at it and said to myself -- WOW! that's stupid! -- and deleted my work.

Should there be a field for that, too?

Rochin, editing should include getting your grammar correct!

I concede . . . it should be a required field . . .